Meet the 2017 Commercialization Fellows

Doctoral students in Cornell’sCommercialization Fellows program gathered on Dec. 8 in the Physical Sciences Building to present their work and future plans for their projects.

Offered by Cornell Engineering, the Commercialization Fellowship provides six months of funding for engineering Ph.D.s to teach them how to explore potential industrial applications of university inventions. The fellows work with entrepreneurship faculty in the SC Johnson College of Business to identify market opportunities for their technologies.

Integrating commercialization skills into their doctoral studies in engineering, Commercialization Fellows are paired with MBA students in the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management. The fellows prepared 5-minute presentations on the status of their technologies and where they believe those technologies are headed.

A fluorinated polymer layer is used to enhance the cycling performance of high-capacity, lithium-metal batteries used in industries such as transportation and alternative energy generation. The coating is applied to a battery’s anode and this fluoride-rich interphase layer helps to control reactions leading to a boost in the battery’s performance.

Juan Guzman

Capro-X bioprocess

A unique bioprocess that can increase the value of bio-ethanol production by circumventing energy-demanding distillation. The fermentation broth from bio-ethanol production can be fed to the bioprocess to produce a high-value bio-oil that can be used as an animal feed supplement, replace chemicals sourced from palm oil, and be refined to manufacture plastics and pharmaceuticals.

Kayla Nguyen

Electron Microscopy Pixel Array Detector

A four-dimensional detector used in scanning transmission electron microscopy that can produce an unprecedented amount of information about the sample that is collected at each scan position, including thickness, strains, tilts, rotations, polarity, atomic fields, long-range electromagnetic fields and orbital angular momentum.

Arna Pálsdóttir

Supercritical Fluid Extraction of Lithium

A new method for extracting lithium from brine sources, including traditional brines and geothermal wastewaters, that aims to replace the solar evaporation portion of the process to significantly decrease the time and environmental impact of producing lithium.

Thomas Wallin

PMP Stereolithography Build Window

A low-cost window substrate for commercial stereolithography 3-D printers that allows for the printing of polydimethylsiloxane (PMP), a silicone material. The window paves the way for new applications for 3-D-printed soft devices that require springs, hinges and soft robotics.

Catherine Wong

Rapid-prototyping Toolkit for Robot Controllers

A software toolkit allowing users to forgo manual designing and coding of robot controllers and instead use basic English vocal commands that the software converts into robot commands. The kit programs controllers that follow instructions without the errors and failures typically associated with coding.